Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Apart from making a few 'slideshow DVDs' (using MemoriesOnTV), I'm a
complete novice in this territory. I've just started dabbling with
Windows MovieMaker 2.0. I made a 4MB WMV with it and have eventually
converted it to an AVI (albeit 8MB, too long), using 'WMV to AVI MPEG
DVD WMV Converter' V1.2.2 from Allok Soft. I'm now trying to work with
that AVI in VirtualDub (1.3c). But I'm confused by a few truly basic
points, and would appreciate a little help please. (BTW, the
Help|Contents seems great, but the Help|Find doesn't work at all here.
Is that others' experience?)

OK, specifics. As a simple first toe-in-the-water step I want to
delete about 1 sec from the end of the AVI. So, I open it in
VirtualDub, and delete those few frames (neat tools for that). But on
then using File|Save AVI I get a file that doesn't play the audio ;-(

Under Audio|Conversion, I see that all 3 sections are set to No
Change. Is it something to do with those two options under Audio:
Direct Stream Copy, and Full Processing Mode perhaps? By choosing the
latter, I get audio back - but the file size is about 250MB, 60 times
the original!

In short, how can I just save the original AVI file with a few minor
edits please?

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

In case it's of any help in isolating my problem, here's what I get by
using File|File Information:

Video stream
Frame size, fps (us per frame) 320x240, 25.000 fps (40000 us)
# of frames (time): 1120 (0:44)
Decompressor: Microsoft Video 1
Number of key frames: 7
Min/avg/max/total key frame size: 9602/27361/39182 (2005K)
Min/avg/max/total delta frame size: 12/5694/35404 (5812K

Audio stream
Sampling rate: 44100Hz
Channels: 2 (Stereo)
Sample precision: 16-bit
Compression: Unknown (tag 0161)
Preload skew: 0 samples (0.00s
# of frames: 3
Min/avg/max/total frame size: 29728/29728/29728 (871K)

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Terry Pinnell wrote:
> Apart from making a few 'slideshow DVDs' (using MemoriesOnTV), I'm a
> complete novice in this territory. I've just started dabbling with
> Windows MovieMaker 2.0. I made a 4MB WMV with it and have eventually
> converted it to an AVI (albeit 8MB, too long), using 'WMV to AVI MPEG
> DVD WMV Converter' V1.2.2 from Allok Soft. I'm now trying to work with
> that AVI in VirtualDub (1.3c).

VDub is now at 1.6. May help to DL latest version.

> OK, specifics. As a simple first toe-in-the-water step I want to
> delete about 1 sec from the end of the AVI. So, I open it in
> VirtualDub, and delete those few frames (neat tools for that). But on
> then using File|Save AVI I get a file that doesn't play the audio ;-(
>
> Under Audio|Conversion, I see that all 3 sections are set to No
> Change. Is it something to do with those two options under Audio:
> Direct Stream Copy, and Full Processing Mode perhaps? By choosing the
> latter, I get audio back - but the file size is about 250MB, 60 times
> the original!

By specifying Full Processing Mode you tell VD to recompress according
to whatever you selected under Compression. If you did not select
anything in particular, it is possible that it defaulted to
UNCOMPRESSED, which would account for an increase in file size.

> In short, how can I just save the original AVI file with a few minor
> edits please?

I've done exactly what you are trying to do, simply by selecting
"Direct Stream Copy" for both Video and Audio. I don't recall having to
do anything else. I chopped off some bits at the end of the clip and
Saved, and that's all.

---
No question is difficult if you know the answer.

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Terry Pinnell wrote:

> I've just started dabbling with Windows MovieMaker 2.0. I made a
> 4MB WMV with it

First things first: Where's the original video from? Did you shoot it by
yourself? If so, what kind of camera did you use? How did you get the
clip into Windows MovieMaker in the first place?

> and have eventually converted it to an AVI (albeit 8MB, too long),
> using 'WMV to AVI MPEG DVD WMV Converter' V1.2.2 from Allok Soft.

In a later message you imply that the AVI codec that was used as the
target format for this conversion was "Microsoft Video 1". That's not
necessarily a good choice, but it is hard to suggest anything specific
without knowing your actual goal. Where's the video going to end up? Do
you need to edit it in any other way than by just cutting extraneous
parts off? (If all you want to do is simple trimming, why bring it out
of Movie Maker at all?)

> I'm now trying to work with that AVI in VirtualDub (1.3c).

You might want to download the latest version (1.6.10):
<http://www.virtualdub.org/>.

> But I'm confused by a few truly basic points, and would appreciate a
> little help please. (BTW, the Help|Contents seems great, but the
> Help|Find doesn't work at all here. Is that others' experience?)

The latest version does not have Help|Find at all. The help file seems
to be a collection of locally stored web pages now, not a Windows *.hlp
or *.chm help file. (I'm not exactly sure why this is so - I would have
preferred a standard help file. Then again, even Adobe does it this way
these days, for some unfathomable reason.)

> OK, specifics. As a simple first toe-in-the-water step I want to
> delete about 1 sec from the end of the AVI. So, I open it in
> VirtualDub, and delete those few frames (neat tools for that). But on
> then using File|Save AVI I get a file that doesn't play the audio ;-(
>
> Under Audio|Conversion, I see that all 3 sections are set to No
> Change. Is it something to do with those two options under Audio:
> Direct Stream Copy, and Full Processing Mode perhaps? By choosing the
> latter, I get audio back - but the file size is about 250MB, 60 times
> the original!
>
> In short, how can I just save the original AVI file with a few minor
> edits please?

I'm not sure what causes the problems you have seen, but in principle,
everything _should_ work if you select "Direct Stream Copy" for _both_
the video track and the audio track. This should allow cutting the video
in a "smart render" fashion - with no changes to the actual picture or
audio content.

I would suggest trying out the latest version - but I would _also_
suggest telling a bit more about what is it that you're wanting to _do_
with the video. What's the end goal? (Converting from WMV to "Microsoft
Video 1" is not a usual thing to do.)

--
znark

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Jukka Aho" <jukka.aho@iki.fi> wrote:

>Terry Pinnell wrote:
>
>> I've just started dabbling with Windows MovieMaker 2.0. I made a
>> 4MB WMV with it
>
>First things first: Where's the original video from? Did you shoot it by
>yourself? If so, what kind of camera did you use? How did you get the
>clip into Windows MovieMaker in the first place?

Thanks, appreciate the detailed reply.

I could have made the post even longer by covering all of that! But I
thought it redundant given that the WMV from MovieMaker is playing OK.
(It plays in WMP9, IrfanView, Nero ShowTime, RealPlayer and PowerDVD.)

It's one of the first WMVs I've made with MS Windows Movie Maker 2.0.
(Content is irrelevant; it's for one of the specialist electronics
newsgroups.) The WMV plays fine in WMP, IrfanView, Nero ShowTime, Real
Player, and PowerDVD. The reason I'm trying to convert it anyway is
that one person in the group said the WMV wouldn't play in his WMP. No
idea why (surely that's the 'native' format for WMP?), but I thought
I'd try to offer him an AVI (and maybe MPG) as well.

>> and have eventually converted it to an AVI (albeit 8MB, too long),
>> using 'WMV to AVI MPEG DVD WMV Converter' V1.2.2 from Allok Soft.
>
>In a later message you imply that the AVI codec that was used as the
>target format for this conversion was "Microsoft Video 1". That's not
>necessarily a good choice, but it is hard to suggest anything specific
>without knowing your actual goal. Where's the video going to end up? Do
>you need to edit it in any other way than by just cutting extraneous
>parts off? (If all you want to do is simple trimming, why bring it out
>of Movie Maker at all?)

See answers above.
>> I'm now trying to work with that AVI in VirtualDub (1.3c).
>
>You might want to download the latest version (1.6.10):
><http://www.virtualdub.org/>.

OK, downloaded that now. (I mistakenly thought I'd installed the
latest yesterday.)

>> But I'm confused by a few truly basic points, and would appreciate a
>> little help please. (BTW, the Help|Contents seems great, but the
>> Help|Find doesn't work at all here. Is that others' experience?)
>
>The latest version does not have Help|Find at all. The help file seems
>to be a collection of locally stored web pages now, not a Windows *.hlp
>or *.chm help file. (I'm not exactly sure why this is so - I would have
>preferred a standard help file. Then again, even Adobe does it this way
>these days, for some unfathomable reason.)
>
>> OK, specifics. As a simple first toe-in-the-water step I want to
>> delete about 1 sec from the end of the AVI. So, I open it in
>> VirtualDub, and delete those few frames (neat tools for that). But on
>> then using File|Save AVI I get a file that doesn't play the audio ;-(
>>
>> Under Audio|Conversion, I see that all 3 sections are set to No
>> Change. Is it something to do with those two options under Audio:
>> Direct Stream Copy, and Full Processing Mode perhaps? By choosing the
>> latter, I get audio back - but the file size is about 250MB, 60 times
>> the original!
>>
>> In short, how can I just save the original AVI file with a few minor
>> edits please?
>
>I'm not sure what causes the problems you have seen, but in principle,
>everything _should_ work if you select "Direct Stream Copy" for _both_
>the video track and the audio track. This should allow cutting the video
>in a "smart render" fashion - with no changes to the actual picture or
>audio content.

>I would suggest trying out the latest version - but I would _also_
>suggest telling a bit more about what is it that you're wanting to _do_
>with the video. What's the end goal? (Converting from WMV to "Microsoft
>Video 1" is not a usual thing to do.)

Hope the above background answers those.Will report back after
following those steps again with new version.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Terry Pinnell wrote:

>> First things first: Where's the original video from? Did you shoot
>> it by yourself? If so, what kind of camera did you use? How did you
>> get the clip into Windows MovieMaker in the first place?

> I could have made the post even longer by covering all of that! But I
> thought it redundant given that the WMV from MovieMaker is playing OK.
> (It plays in WMP9, IrfanView, Nero ShowTime, RealPlayer and PowerDVD.)

WMV might be the native editing format for MovieMaker, but it's not the
native storage or acquisition format for any digital video camera I know
of. That's why I was asking about the (technical) origins of the video
clip - a question which you didn't answer, btw. If you're going to save
the video to another format, anyway, it would be best to skip the WMV
step altogether, since any intermediate lossy compression step only
serves to degrade the image quality.

For example, if the video was shot on an ordinary (Mini)DV camera, its
native format and codec is "DV". Converting that to WMV format in Movie
Maker serves no useful purpose, unless you plan to distribute the video
in that format (which you didn't, since you wanted to convert the WMV to
AVI.) Knowing how you got the video on your computer from the camera and
what was the original, native format _before_ it was converted to a WMV,
would help here, even though you chose to skip that question. (Or is it
that you don't have the original clip any longer?)

> It's one of the first WMVs I've made with MS Windows Movie Maker 2.0.
> (Content is irrelevant; it's for one of the specialist electronics
> newsgroups.)

Content is never irrelevant. Is it high-motion or low-motion? Is it
computer-generated or natural images? Interlaced or not? Cartoonish or
continuous tone with millions of shades? Lots of sharp little details
and text or not? Knowing what the content is like will help in making an
informed choice of a video codec.

> The WMV plays fine in WMP, IrfanView, Nero ShowTime, Real
> Player, and PowerDVD. The reason I'm trying to convert it anyway is
> that one person in the group said the WMV wouldn't play in his WMP. No
> idea why (surely that's the 'native' format for WMP?),

Maybe he doesn't have the latest version of Windows Media Player and the
WMV codecs on his computer. They can be downloaded from here:

<http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx>

> but I thought I'd try to offer him an AVI (and maybe MPG) as well.

There are two things that should be considered here. First of all, if
you still have the original clip in the
native-to-the-camera-or-other-acquisition-device format, you should be
using _that_ as your source clip for AVI conversion instead of the
intermediate WMV clip. Skipping middlemans helps in maximizing the
quality and minimizing compression artifacts.

Secondly, AVI is not a video format per se. It's a generic container
format - a wrapper, if you wish - inside which video and audio streams
can be stored. The video and audio streams inside an AVI file are
handled by codecs, some of which are more suitable for particular type
of jobs (or content) than the others.

What this all boils down to is, essentially, that if you want to use the
AVI format at all, you will need to make an informed choice of the video
and audio codecs inside the file. There are dozens to choose from.
Whatever you choose will greatly affect the video and audio quality, and
the size of the final AVI file, so you can't just pick codecs at random.
Your original choice was the "Microsoft Video-1" codec for the video
stream (and uncompressed 44.1 kHz PCM audio format for the audio track),
but that's not a particularly good choice for a video clip that is to be
distributed on the Internet.

That being said, basically, the only AVI video codec that rivals WMV in
performance (and which can be considered a fairly good choice for
distributing video clips on the Internet), is XviD or DivX. These codecs
do not come with Windows; they need to be downloaded separately. The MP3
format is often used for audio tracks. There are other AVI codecs which
are commonly used for acquisition, editing and archiving, but they're
not usually used on the Internet.

--
znark

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Jukka Aho" <jukka.aho@iki.fi> wrote:

>Terry Pinnell wrote:
>
>>> First things first: Where's the original video from? Did you shoot
>>> it by yourself? If so, what kind of camera did you use? How did you
>>> get the clip into Windows MovieMaker in the first place?
>
>> I could have made the post even longer by covering all of that! But I
>> thought it redundant given that the WMV from MovieMaker is playing OK.
>> (It plays in WMP9, IrfanView, Nero ShowTime, RealPlayer and PowerDVD.)
>
>WMV might be the native editing format for MovieMaker, but it's not the
>native storage or acquisition format for any digital video camera I know
>of. That's why I was asking about the (technical) origins of the video
>clip - a question which you didn't answer, btw. If you're going to save
>the video to another format, anyway, it would be best to skip the WMV
>step altogether, since any intermediate lossy compression step only
>serves to degrade the image quality.
>
>For example, if the video was shot on an ordinary (Mini)DV camera, its
>native format and codec is "DV". Converting that to WMV format in Movie
>Maker serves no useful purpose, unless you plan to distribute the video
>in that format (which you didn't, since you wanted to convert the WMV to
>AVI.) Knowing how you got the video on your computer from the camera and
>what was the original, native format _before_ it was converted to a WMV,
>would help here, even though you chose to skip that question. (Or is it
>that you don't have the original clip any longer?)
>
>> It's one of the first WMVs I've made with MS Windows Movie Maker 2.0.
>> (Content is irrelevant; it's for one of the specialist electronics
>> newsgroups.)
>
>Content is never irrelevant. Is it high-motion or low-motion? Is it
>computer-generated or natural images? Interlaced or not? Cartoonish or
>continuous tone with millions of shades? Lots of sharp little details
>and text or not? Knowing what the content is like will help in making an
>informed choice of a video codec.
>
>> The WMV plays fine in WMP, IrfanView, Nero ShowTime, Real
>> Player, and PowerDVD. The reason I'm trying to convert it anyway is
>> that one person in the group said the WMV wouldn't play in his WMP. No
>> idea why (surely that's the 'native' format for WMP?),
>
>Maybe he doesn't have the latest version of Windows Media Player and the
>WMV codecs on his computer. They can be downloaded from here:
>
><http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx>
>
>> but I thought I'd try to offer him an AVI (and maybe MPG) as well.
>
>There are two things that should be considered here. First of all, if
>you still have the original clip in the
>native-to-the-camera-or-other-acquisition-device format, you should be
>using _that_ as your source clip for AVI conversion instead of the
>intermediate WMV clip. Skipping middlemans helps in maximizing the
>quality and minimizing compression artifacts.
>
>Secondly, AVI is not a video format per se. It's a generic container
>format - a wrapper, if you wish - inside which video and audio streams
>can be stored. The video and audio streams inside an AVI file are
>handled by codecs, some of which are more suitable for particular type
>of jobs (or content) than the others.
>
>What this all boils down to is, essentially, that if you want to use the
>AVI format at all, you will need to make an informed choice of the video
>and audio codecs inside the file. There are dozens to choose from.
>Whatever you choose will greatly affect the video and audio quality, and
>the size of the final AVI file, so you can't just pick codecs at random.
>Your original choice was the "Microsoft Video-1" codec for the video
>stream (and uncompressed 44.1 kHz PCM audio format for the audio track),
>but that's not a particularly good choice for a video clip that is to be
>distributed on the Internet.
>
>That being said, basically, the only AVI video codec that rivals WMV in
>performance (and which can be considered a fairly good choice for
>distributing video clips on the Internet), is XviD or DivX. These codecs
>do not come with Windows; they need to be downloaded separately. The MP3
>format is often used for audio tracks. There are other AVI codecs which
>are commonly used for acquisition, editing and archiving, but they're
>not usually used on the Internet.

Thanks for that very comprehensive reply - much food for thought
there! I only got into this a few days ago, and the more I learn the
more I realise there *is* to learn <g>.

As you'll see, I'm not convinced the detail will help you to help me -
but I'm very happy to bore you with it!

The originals were merely two 10 second MPGs recorded with my Sony
DSC-1 Cybershot digicam, hand-held view of an array of flashing LEDs.
I've now uploaded them here:
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/MOV00004.MPG
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com/Images/MOV00006.MPG

To learn MovieMaker (version 2.0, which I installed last weekend to
replace the very old 1.1 version I found on my WinXP PC ), I decided
to make a 'fun' movie from these, for a few of my friends on one of
the electronics groups. So you now see I was coming at this from a
quite different perspective to the one you were describing. Source
content was relatively trivial, and easy to capture at the low quality
level I needed for this (with my limited free web storage space a
significant factor here too). Added value would come from the *extras*
added by MovieMaker:
- I joined the two MPGs
- I deleted bits where I'd moved the camera
- I realised the first (slow) section was too short, so I duplicated
it
- I went off for an hour to find a suitable soundtrack and re-learned
how to edit a WMA file with Goldwave. In particular I wanted its beat
to sync with the LED frequency (about 1 Hz). I also wanted the
soundtrack to be quiet (not muted) while the 5 Hz part was showing;
obviously it was then out of sync, but I wanted to bring the sound
back up over the 'credits'.
- I added the finished soundtrack in MovieMaker
- I saved it, using the Wizard's default of 'Best for my computer...'

That gave me the WMV, size 3.8MB, which I duly uploaded and linked to
from the newsgroup. It's still there, in its original form, at
http://www.terrypin.dial.pipex.com [...] cer4MB.wmv

I think that fills in the holes; the rest was in my earlier posts.

So you see, we're talking at very different ends of the spectrum! I
don't even *have a camcorder. And the major part of my finished
'movie' has come from MovieMaker.

My aim now is therefore to make an MPG and an AVI, as much for
learning as to possibly help my friend whose WMP cannot play the WMV.
Both need to be of a similar size to the WMV. (I have managed a couple
of twice the size, and several of about *60* times the size!)

Getting back to VirtualDub, I have made progress. The breakthrough as
you and bxf suspected was to set both video and audio to 'Direct
Stream Copy'. However, I am still getting *very erratic* results. I'll
try to report these methodically in a separate post - this is already
getting brain numbingly long I suspect - but the two key problems are:
- 1.6 cannot read an AVI made in 1.3
- Both 1.3 and 1.6 give inconsistent results: sometimes, after opening
an AVI file that has behaved properly up till then, I cannot play the
Output file, only the Input. This seems because both video and audio
are in Direct Stream Copy mode. Then, running the identical operations
straight after, only the Output's *audio* will play! Then, repeating,
maybe *both* will play. Very disconcerting...

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Terry Pinnell wrote:

> The originals were merely two 10 second MPGs recorded with my Sony
> DSC-1 Cybershot digicam, hand-held view of an array of flashing LEDs.

OK, now we're making some progress here.

The problem with the MPEG format is that there aren't many editors that
would allow editing it natively. (Especially the big-name NLE apps are
still lacking in this regard.) There are specialized MPEG editors such
as "TMPGEnc MPEG Editor" or "VideoReDo", or "Womble MPEG Video Wizard"
for this purpose (Google for these three to get more information - they
all have downloadable demo versions), but they do not usually have as
much features and functionality as a generic-purpose all-around NLE.

This, of course, does not matter if you're going to convert your
original MPEG file into some other format (for web distirbution),
anyway. If that's the case, you only need to be using an editor
that allows opening the MPEG file, editing the video, and saving
the outcome to the target format of your choice. But therein lies
the problem: your target format of choice is the AVI format (with
yet-unspecified video and audio codecs), but Windows Movie Maker
2.0 only supports saving in WMV/ASF format - or, in DV AVI format,
as a sort of an exception to the main rule.

Unlike more comprehensive video editors on the market (such as
Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas and the like), Movie Maker 2 does
_not_ allow you to export your finished video in AVI format
using whatever hand-picked audio and video codecs you wish -
even though this kind of functionality is what you would be
need here.

Therefore, you have now improvised your way around the problem
by first saving your edited movie to WMV format and by then
converting it to the AVI format using an external tool. This
sounds more or less reasonable approach at circumventing
MovieMaker's restrictions, but on a closer look, there are
some obvious problems (as already outlined in my previous
message):

1) You used the WMV->AVI conversion tool without manually
specifying the AVI audio and video codecs. Hence, it just
gave you whatever defaults there were (and the default
codecs it chose were not particularly good for web
distribution and even VirtualDub didn't like them, for
one reason or the other)

2) Even if you now go back, install some AVI codecs that are
known-good for editing and/or web distribution, and proceed
by choosing a reasonable codec for the WMV->AVI conversion
process, your video has now gone through no less than three
(3) lossy, image-degrading compression cycles: the MPEG
compression in the camera was the first one, the WMV
compression (when you saved the video in Movie Maker) was the
second one, and whatever lossy codec you finally use for the
WMV->AVI conversion step and web publishing will be the third
one.

I see basically three different ways to avoid these problems.

Option 1: Just make your friend - the one that wasn't able to
see the WMV video - to install the latest Windows Media Player
and/or codec packs (for which I already gave you the download
link in my previous message). If this makes the WMV video to
work for him, the problem is solved.

Option 2: Download/purchase a specialized MPEG editor (such
as Womble MPEG Wizard) which will allow you to edit the video
from the camera natively in the MPEG format. This is even
better than Option 1, since MPEG-1 video will work quite
universally, and you get rid of the lossy WMV compression
step. (The only downside is that MPEG files are generally
bigger than WMV files of equal quality.)

Option 3: Use some other, more generic-purpose editor than
Movie Maker: one, which will allow you to save directly to
the format of your choice, instead of forcing you to use
the proprietary WMV format and intermediate lossy
conversion steps.

* * *

Of course, if you insist, there's the "option 4": install
better AVI codecs on your computer, make the conversion to
AVI again (using some other codec than "Microsoft Video 1"
- one, which you have manually picked with some informed
reasoning behind your choice), edit in VirtualDub and save
for web. That's a bit kludgish, though, and your final
video will lose some of its video quality in all these
extraneous, lossy, intermediate conversion steps. (What
is more, the person you're trying to help will need to
install the final AVI codec you choose for distribution
for himself, too, because Windows does not really _come_
with web distribution friendly AVI codecs.)

> So you now see I was coming at this from a quite different
> perspective to the one you were describing.

Not really. The important pieces that were missing were the
type of the camera and the native format it stores the video in.

> Source content was relatively trivial, and easy to capture
> at the low quality level I needed for this (with my limited
> free web storage space a significant factor here too). Added
> value would come from the *extras*
> added by MovieMaker:
> - I joined the two MPGs
> - I deleted bits where I'd moved the camera
> - I realised the first (slow) section was too short, so I
> duplicated it
> - I went off for an hour to find a suitable soundtrack and
> re-learned how to edit a WMA file with Goldwave. In particular
> I wanted its beat to sync with the LED frequency (about 1 Hz).
> I also wanted the soundtrack to be quiet (not muted) while
> the 5 Hz part was showing; obviously it was then out of sync,
> but I wanted to bring the sound back up over the 'credits'.
> - I added the finished soundtrack in MovieMaker
> - I saved it, using the Wizard's default of 'Best for my
> computer...'

OK, I can see where you're coming from: you have already done lots of
work with this clip and don't want to recreate it again in some other
editor.

It's a shame that there is no way to export uncompressed video (or,
gasp, frameserve) from Movie Maker, since this would allow utilizing the
editor for tasks where WMV is not the preferred target format. As of
now, the only way to get video out of Movie Maker is through lossy
compression which degrades image quality.

> My aim now is therefore to make an MPG and an AVI, as much for
> learning as to possibly help my friend whose WMP cannot play
> the WMV. Both need to be of a similar size to the WMV. (I have
> managed a couple of twice the size, and several of about *60*
> times the size!)

If I had to do it this way, I would do it using AviSynth (Google for
that) and VirtualDub in combination, and XviD for the final target
codec. See <http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/wmv2avi.htm>. (Frameserving
the WMV from AviSynth to VirtualDub removes the need to use the WVM->AVI
converter you used.)

If you want MPEG, instead, I would install a demo version of TMPGEnc and
open the AviSynth script (that frameserves the WMV file) in there.

> Getting back to VirtualDub, I have made progress. The breakthrough
> as you and bxf suspected was to set both video and audio to 'Direct
> Stream Copy'. However, I am still getting *very erratic* results. I'll
> try to report these methodically in a separate post - this is already
> getting brain numbingly long I suspect - but the two key problems are:
> - 1.6 cannot read an AVI made in 1.3
> - Both 1.3 and 1.6 give inconsistent results: sometimes, after opening
> an AVI file that has behaved properly up till then, I cannot play the
> Output file, only the Input. This seems because both video and audio
> are in Direct Stream Copy mode. Then, running the identical operations
> straight after, only the Output's *audio* will play! Then, repeating,
> maybe *both* will play. Very disconcerting...

That's probably somehow related to the "Microsoft Video-1" codec with
which your conversion tool saved the AVI file. If I had to use an
external conversion tool, I would probably save the intermediate video
file as uncompressed AVI, or using HuffYUV or Alparysoft Lossless Codec.

--
znark

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Jukka Aho" <jukka.aho@iki.fi> wrote:

>Terry Pinnell wrote:
>
>> The originals were merely two 10 second MPGs recorded with my Sony
>> DSC-1 Cybershot digicam, hand-held view of an array of flashing LEDs.
>
>OK, now we're making some progress here.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to reply so thoroughly to all
my points. It's much appreciated.

>The problem with the MPEG format is that there aren't many editors that
>would allow editing it natively. (Especially the big-name NLE apps are
>still lacking in this regard.) There are specialized MPEG editors such
>as "TMPGEnc MPEG Editor" or "VideoReDo", or "Womble MPEG Video Wizard"
>for this purpose (Google for these three to get more information - they
>all have downloadable demo versions), but they do not usually have as
>much features and functionality as a generic-purpose all-around NLE.

I have TMPGEnc. It's a trial, and the MPEG2 facility has expired.

I've just installed trails of the other two you mentioned. I like the
look of Womble. It's a subjective issue, but must say VideoReDo looks
awfully garish to me!

Took me a visit to AcronymFinder, but now see that NLE means Non
Linear Editor (not Necrotizing Leukoencephalitis or Network-Layer
Encryption) <g>

>This, of course, does not matter if you're going to convert your
>original MPEG file into some other format (for web distirbution),
>anyway. If that's the case, you only need to be using an editor
>that allows opening the MPEG file, editing the video, and saving
>the outcome to the target format of your choice. But therein lies
>the problem: your target format of choice is the AVI format (with
>yet-unspecified video and audio codecs), but Windows Movie Maker
>2.0 only supports saving in WMV/ASF format - or, in DV AVI format,
>as a sort of an exception to the main rule.

Yes, just learned about that DV AVI option. But it turned my 4MB MPG
into about 150MB!

>Unlike more comprehensive video editors on the market (such as
>Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas and the like), Movie Maker 2 does
>_not_ allow you to export your finished video in AVI format
>using whatever hand-picked audio and video codecs you wish -
>even though this kind of functionality is what you would be
>need here.
>
>Therefore, you have now improvised your way around the problem
>by first saving your edited movie to WMV format and by then
>converting it to the AVI format using an external tool.

The conversion was a confused process of trial and error. I'll have to
repeat it fairly soon before I forget how I did it. Do you know of a
table or matrix somewhere showing what SW converts one format to
another please?

>This
>sounds more or less reasonable approach at circumventing
>MovieMaker's restrictions, but on a closer look, there are
>some obvious problems (as already outlined in my previous
>message):
>
>1) You used the WMV->AVI conversion tool without manually
>specifying the AVI audio and video codecs. Hence, it just
>gave you whatever defaults there were (and the default
>codecs it chose were not particularly good for web
>distribution and even VirtualDub didn't like them, for
>one reason or the other)

Indeed. This codec stuff is entirely new to me, and hence one more
black art!

Also, I gather it's important to know what audio and video codecs your
*source* file 'have' (if that's the right term). Since that first
tentative conversion, I've installed a couple of utilities for
analysing that: afreeCodecVT, and AVIcodec. But interpreting what they
tell me in examples like these

LED-Sequencer4MB.wmv
File : 3.82 MB (3.82 MB), duration: 0:00:49, type: ASF, 1
audio stream(s), quality: 38 %
Video : 11.18 MB, 1914 Kbps, 10.163 fps, 320*240 (4:3), WMV3 =
Windows Media Video 9, Supported
Audio : 405 KB, 67 Kbps, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, 0x161 = Windows
Media Audio 9, Supported

LED-Sequencer4MB-1b.avi
File : 8.53 MB (8.53 MB), duration: 0:00:44, type: AVI, 1 audio
stream(s), quality: 52 %
Video : 7.69 MB, 1463 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 320*240 (4:3), CRAM =
Unknown, Supported
Audio : 859 KB, 160 Kbps, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, 0x161 = Windows
Media Audio V2, Supported

is beyond me.

>2) Even if you now go back, install some AVI codecs that are
>known-good for editing and/or web distribution, and proceed
>by choosing a reasonable codec for the WMV->AVI conversion
>process, your video has now gone through no less than three
>(3) lossy, image-degrading compression cycles: the MPEG
>compression in the camera was the first one, the WMV
>compression (when you saved the video in Movie Maker) was the
>second one, and whatever lossy codec you finally use for the
>WMV->AVI conversion step and web publishing will be the third
>one.

Agreed, but in this particular case, quality is of low priority. I'm
going to try it again anyway when I get time, to hopefully get some
idea of the effect of using different codecs. Is there a relatively
small subset you could recommend please? Otherwise the combinations
possible (audio/video) run into hundreds!

>I see basically three different ways to avoid these problems.
>
>Option 1: Just make your friend - the one that wasn't able to
>see the WMV video - to install the latest Windows Media Player
>and/or codec packs (for which I already gave you the download
>link in my previous message). If this makes the WMV video to
>work for him, the problem is solved.

It turned out his WMP was version 6! Now updated to WMP9 (same as
mine). Have yet to hear from him, but assume he can now play the WMV.
So further work on AVI and MPG conversions can now proceed as a
learning exercise, unhampered by any immediate practical need <g>.

>Option 2: Download/purchase a specialized MPEG editor (such
>as Womble MPEG Wizard) which will allow you to edit the video
>from the camera natively in the MPEG format. This is even
>better than Option 1, since MPEG-1 video will work quite
>universally, and you get rid of the lossy WMV compression
>step. (The only downside is that MPEG files are generally
>bigger than WMV files of equal quality.)

As mentioned, trialing Womble. Pretty expensive though, for a user who
is only dabbling in this on a casual basis. On the other hand, that
hasn't always stopped me buying nice tools in the past...

>Option 3: Use some other, more generic-purpose editor than
>Movie Maker: one, which will allow you to save directly to
>the format of your choice, instead of forcing you to use
>the proprietary WMV format and intermediate lossy
>conversion steps.

That sounds like heavyweight (=expensive) SW?
>
>Of course, if you insist, there's the "option 4": install
>better AVI codecs on your computer, make the conversion to
>AVI again (using some other codec than "Microsoft Video 1"
>- one, which you have manually picked with some informed
>reasoning behind your choice), edit in VirtualDub and save
>for web. That's a bit kludgish, though, and your final
>video will lose some of its video quality in all these
>extraneous, lossy, intermediate conversion steps. (What
>is more, the person you're trying to help will need to
>install the final AVI codec you choose for distribution
>for himself, too, because Windows does not really _come_
>with web distribution friendly AVI codecs.)
>
>> So you now see I was coming at this from a quite different
>> perspective to the one you were describing.
>
>Not really. The important pieces that were missing were the
>type of the camera and the native format it stores the video in.
>
>> Source content was relatively trivial, and easy to capture
>> at the low quality level I needed for this (with my limited
>> free web storage space a significant factor here too). Added
>> value would come from the *extras*
>> added by MovieMaker:
>> - I joined the two MPGs
>> - I deleted bits where I'd moved the camera
>> - I realised the first (slow) section was too short, so I
>> duplicated it
>> - I went off for an hour to find a suitable soundtrack and
>> re-learned how to edit a WMA file with Goldwave. In particular
>> I wanted its beat to sync with the LED frequency (about 1 Hz).
>> I also wanted the soundtrack to be quiet (not muted) while
>> the 5 Hz part was showing; obviously it was then out of sync,
>> but I wanted to bring the sound back up over the 'credits'.
>> - I added the finished soundtrack in MovieMaker
>> - I saved it, using the Wizard's default of 'Best for my
>> computer...'
>
>OK, I can see where you're coming from: you have already done lots of
>work with this clip and don't want to recreate it again in some other
>editor.
>
>It's a shame that there is no way to export uncompressed video (or,
>gasp, frameserve) from Movie Maker, since this would allow utilizing the
>editor for tasks where WMV is not the preferred target format. As of
>now, the only way to get video out of Movie Maker is through lossy
>compression which degrades image quality.

Yes indeed. On my brief acquaintance with it, Movie Maker looks as if
it will do most of what I need, with the sort of 'end-user orientated'
interface that I need.

>> My aim now is therefore to make an MPG and an AVI, as much for
>> learning as to possibly help my friend whose WMP cannot play
>> the WMV. Both need to be of a similar size to the WMV. (I have
>> managed a couple of twice the size, and several of about *60*
>> times the size!)
>
>If I had to do it this way, I would do it using AviSynth (Google for
>that) and VirtualDub in combination, and XviD for the final target
>codec. See <http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/wmv2avi.htm>. (Frameserving
>the WMV from AviSynth to VirtualDub removes the need to use the WVM->AVI
>converter you used.)

You're beginning to lose me there! Maybe it will become clearer after
experiment. So far I found AviSynth v2.56 Beta 3 at
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/ [...] isynth.cfm
but it looks heavy.

>If you want MPEG, instead, I would install a demo version of TMPGEnc and
>open the AviSynth script (that frameserves the WMV file) in there.

I have the TMPGEnc demo version.

>> Getting back to VirtualDub, I have made progress. The breakthrough
>> as you and bxf suspected was to set both video and audio to 'Direct
>> Stream Copy'. However, I am still getting *very erratic* results. I'll
>> try to report these methodically in a separate post - this is already
>> getting brain numbingly long I suspect - but the two key problems are:
>> - 1.6 cannot read an AVI made in 1.3
>> - Both 1.3 and 1.6 give inconsistent results: sometimes, after opening
>> an AVI file that has behaved properly up till then, I cannot play the
>> Output file, only the Input. This seems because both video and audio
>> are in Direct Stream Copy mode. Then, running the identical operations
>> straight after, only the Output's *audio* will play! Then, repeating,
>> maybe *both* will play. Very disconcerting...
>
>That's probably somehow related to the "Microsoft Video-1" codec with
>which your conversion tool saved the AVI file. If I had to use an
>external conversion tool, I would probably save the intermediate video
>file as uncompressed AVI, or using HuffYUV or Alparysoft Lossless Codec.

I'll look out for those. I did get a sort of 'codec package'
yesterday, called K-Lite Full, from
http://www.free-codecs.com/K_Lite_ [...] wnload.htm
but I stopped short of installing it. For a start, it says:
"It is highly recommended to first uninstall other codec related
packages before installing this package," yet I'm not sure whether or
not I *have* any. And then it offered a *very* long list, most checked
by default. In my state of ignorance, I felt it was too risky to
proceed.

Thanks again for your patience and extensive help.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK